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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23211550">Romance is For Other People</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperChorifly/pseuds/SuperChorifly'>SuperChorifly</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alone with Your Thoughts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Banana Fish (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Boys In Love, Character Study, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Relationship, Romance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 09:49:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23211550</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperChorifly/pseuds/SuperChorifly</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When it came to romance, it was not a surprise he thought himself as clueless as they came, surely no one could be worse at it than him.<br/>No one but, apparently, Ash himself.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ash Lynx &amp; Shorter Wong, Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Alone with Your Thoughts [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675171</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>65</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Romance is For Other People</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Mentions of past child sexual abuse, past eating disorder and past injury, all very mild and implícit.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Eiji okumura wouldn't consider himself an expert in anything romantic, you didn't really have time for romance when you were getting ready for the olympics. Then again, you didn't really have time for a lot of things when you were getting ready for the olympics, you didn't have time for fun with friends or weekends with your family or eating as much as you should and worrying about all that training you are getting in not actually be overexerting your body to the point you end up not going to the olympics at all and instead you go to a hospital room with a career ending injury, crumbling mental health an not much else.</p><p>Anyway, the point is, Eiji never really worried about romance, he remembers having a crush on his classmate, a boy two years his senior he had known most of his life since they lived pretty close by and in a small town like his you end up meeting almost everybody within your age group, they had gone out a couple of times during his last summer in Izumo, long afternoons at the beach holding hands and warm nightly walks that ended with a shy kiss on the cheek and a quiet see you tomorrow, but summer ended and the boy left for college and they wound up losing touch beyond catching up when he returned to Izumo from time to time from college and good luck messages before Eiji had a big competition, but over all it amounted to nothing more than a good friendship.</p><p>On his senior year of highschool he remembers having great admiration for a girl he met during competitions, she was his age and she lived in Tokyo, they only saw each other in their short offtime during a competition but the way she vaulted through the air with such single minded focus and seriousness, suprising everyone with how good she was getting, a prodigy, some said, they had talked a lot about the joy of compiting, the anxiety, the crushing pressure. Again, nothing came of it, what could have been was lost forever after he cut ties with that world.</p><p>So of course he didn't really know what to do when you liked someone, he couldn't flirt for the life of him and would die of embarrasment before confesing his feelings, so at first, when he found himself thinking too long about Ash, looking at him more often or feeling warm too long after talking to him, he told himself he wouldn't do anything about it, he should let it die out as any fleeting feeling he had always did. </p><p>Only it didn't, if anything it got worse, he stumbled with his words, flushed so much he was seriously considering asking for a medical opinion and his chest no longer just felt warm, now it bursted with unnamed feelings, so it was not a surprise he thought himself as clueless as they came, surely no one could be worse at romance than him.</p><p>No one but, appatently, Ash himself. Ash who had lived more horrors in his short 17 years than most did in 80, Ash who had looked so suave and sure of himself when caressing his face and pulling him in for his first ever kiss in a prison, tangling his tongue with Eiji's and slaping his ass for good messure, Ash who for all the expirience he might have with fake flirting, seducing and god knows what else that was forced on him, he didn't have a single clue of how to express honest romantic feelings.</p><p>Please, don't get Eiji wrong, he wasn't trying to be presomptuous, he didn't just assume people had feelings for him, if anything, Eiji would be the first to disbelieve anyone having feelings for his boringly ordinary self, but honestly, Ash was kind of a mess, flirting with him a second (down there too, wanna check?) and flushing red and running to the other side of the room the next when Eiji gave his pathetic (and actually really creepy, what was I thinking, idiot!) attempt to flirt back. </p><p>Or maybe he was wrong, maybe he was reading it all wrong and Ash simply didn't like him that way. It was all too possible for Ash to see Eiji as nothing more than a friend, a good friend who he cares for, but a friend all the same. Maybe this was just a cultural barrier sort of thing, it wouldn't be the first time Eiji crashed face first into one of those, he had met his fair share of people from different parts of the World when he managed a place in the national team and got to go to international competitions, and americans were touchier. Perhaps not too touchy, but certainly more than his consevative mother had raised him to be, maybe all the hugs and the looks and the soft unasuming touches that left him reeling were just how americans treated friends and he was just too... Not american to understand it. It was just a matter of seeing Ash and Shorter together, Ash had conffesed to him that Shorter was not only his best friend, but also his first one, Eiji wasn't sure how their friendship came to be, but he knows it was not under the best of circumstances and that seemed to only strengthen their bond and complete trust in one another.  </p><p>Eiji couldn't say he ever had a friendship quite like that exept maybe his relationship with his little sister, they too cemented their relationship through tough times, staying in their tiny home alone most of the time while their father was admited on and off the hospital and their mother worked two jobs to be able to afford it, taking care of each other from a young age made them close but they weren't particulary touchy, actually, his sister wasn't particulary touchy, only ever allowing his hugs when she was sad and his hair ruffles when she was happy or holding his hand as he layed catatonic in a hospital bed while the doctor talked what it seemed for days to his mom and his coach and the long dark months that followed. </p><p>Ash and Shorter were indeed touchier with each other than with most people, specially Ash, they roughhoused like two untrained puppies annoying eachother and every poor soul that was nearby, lately said soul was mostly Eiji. They even started to be a little like that with him too, and Eiji found himself adjusting to it, to this way of living and experiencing friendship, not quite like what he had had with his highschool friends or team mates, relishing in it even.</p><p>However, there was a small part of him, an annoying little voice that sounded way too much like his sister's, telling him that he was being purposefuly clueless to not see this was so obviously different, Ash didn't behave the same way with him and with Shorter or with anyone else for that matter, he was quieter with Eiji, his contact not playful but meaningful, his looks not knowing but searching.</p><p>So Eiji wondered, since there wasn't much he could do while hidden in their huge uptown appartment, he wondered if he liked Ash and (he was fairly certain) Ash liked him, shouldn't they do something about it? Wasn't that how it went? He vaguely felt like holding hands on the beach with Ash during a fleeting summer or to hide away with him in dark quiet corners and talk about their shared joys and axieties during stolen moments so frail that if you blinked you'd miss them, because there was not much else he had learned to do, he felt things for a while and then he didn't.</p><p>He didn't think this was going to go away though, and it's strange and so very unfair because if they had both been raised normally, with no gangs and no monstruous older men who took everything and left nothing, with no competitions and no coaches who encouraged his self destructiveness, maybe they could have navigated this *thing* pretty easily, maybe they could have something in their lives to guide them through what to do. Eiji supposed, somewhat reluctantly, that beyond any reason, he had the upperhand here, because he at least had his parents marriage as a model. Not a good model by any means, but even when his father was healthy and he left their mother to basically raise them on her own while he spent day and night working, going in and out of town with no warning, or when his mother started visiting their widower neighbor a little too often after father's sickness had taken too much out of them, even then they never stoped caring for one a other, even in Eiji's last day home, which coincidently was during one of his father's healthier periods (short and far between) they still made each other laugh, they held hands when they thought their children weren't watching and just reminded Eiji of those distant days when his sister was but a red ugly little thing that cried all the time, his father was healthy and both him and his mother were content and care free.</p><p>But what if he acted on it and it only made matters worse, what if confesing meant to loose Ash, his touch, his gaze. Ash had had enough unwanted attention to last him a life time and to have the guy he shared a room with share those thoughts, that want, maybe it would disgust him, how could he trust Eiji again?  </p><p>Maybe they were fine as they were, they certainly had more important things to worry about than Eiji's childish crush. He was more than content being able to offer what little parts of himself Ash needed to him, fo as long as he'd have him, he had already given his soul to the jade eyed boy, everything else was unimportant as long as they dealed with them together.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey there! First of all, thank you so much for making it this far, it means the world to me, I hope you liked it, if there are any mistakes in my english or in my very vague mentions of pole voulting please feel free to correct me.</p><p>This was written as a one shot but I'm willing to write some more if that is something any of you would like, please leave a comment!</p><p>Ps: yes in this fic Shorter is very much alive thank you very much, I can't deal with the canon so I make my own canon.</p><p>Stay safe and in your homes!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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